Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Stagecraft in Quebec City: Talk Radio kills!

After a shooting rampage at a Quebec City mosque, the Canadian province's popular conservative talk radio hosts have come under fire for allegedly spreading intolerance and hate.

Critics say the talk shows fuel a divisive climate that allows extreme ideologies to take root and flourish -- a charge that has taken on heightened relevance after a gunman with far-right sympathies opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing six and wounding eight more.

While not pointing a finger at any specific person or organization, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard emphasized Tuesday that "words do matter."

Residents of Quebec City tend to vote more conservatively than the rest of the province.

Some say that radio stations like local FM93 and Radio X -- which are respectively the region's second and third-most listened to, with a combined 30 percent market share -- simply reflect their audience's views.

But others say the shows stoke dangerous beliefs.

"These are right-wing talk radio stations with little substance but a lot of opinions," said Stephane Leman-Langlois, a criminologist at Laval University, where the alleged shooter studied.

These "trash radio" stations, as they have become known locally, "contribute to legitimize increasingly adversarial discourse against minorities in general and Muslims in particular," he told AFP.

Leman-Langlois said they tout "white supremacy, white victimology and repeat over and over that Quebec is in grave danger."

The Left and more chillingly the Premiere of Quebec are now arguing with each other. They're trying to decide if it was the guns that dragged the kid along for a massacre, or if it was the radio dragging him along.

Meanwhile, stagecraft continues. We still don't know what kind of gun was used, we still don't know any motive, we still don't know jack shit except what was on the kid's Facebook page. That page looks just like any other kid's page. At this point, Katy Perry could have made him do it.

Therefore, Canadians should expect a new legislation push in the next year. It will have two prongs. First will be a new gun registry, probably at the provincial level this time. Second will be a hate-speech law. That new law will make it a crime to say anything in criticism of multiculturalism. It will be called the Ernst Zundel* Memorial SHUT UP!!!! Law. I hereby prophesy this.

(*For boilerplate purposes, Ernst Zundel was and remains a psychotic liar about the Holocaust, and was one of the last 'Real Nazi' fanboys in Canada. He was also the canary in Canada's free-speech coal mine, and went toes-up in 1984. The irony of pursuing a man for speech under an unconstitutional law, in the year 1984, was apparently lost on the government of the time. I'm entirely happy with anything bad that might ever happen to Ernst Zundel, he is an evil man. I'm less happy with what his opponents did to Canada in their zeal.)